This occasional blog mainly focussed on historical aspects of handball in the UK with contributions from individuals involved going back to the late 50s when handball arrived in Hull.
The contributions are likely to increasingly focus on contemporary issues as the sport hopefully grows in popularity.

Sunday, 6 June 2010

Posts to this blog are rare and will continue to be rare due to most of the available material being posted already. If anyone has any interesting material relevant to the blog to share then I'm happy to add authors. Anyway, I recently found the two reports which are attached to this post and since it will soon be the 30th anniversary of the game in question then it seemed a good time to post. The game appears to be significant since both reports suggest that it is a first win but the evidence isn't entirely clear; one saying a first for the GB U21 men's team and the other saying the first win in 10 years for any GB men's team. Does anyone have conclusive evidence to support either claim?

However, 27 September 1980 is a night probably best remembered by many of the UK population for the scenes at Wembley Arena as Marvin Hagler put Alan Minter in his place and then had to rushed back to the changing rooms as the crowd rioted. It was a different story for the small crowd that gathered in Milton Keynes as the Great Britain Under 21 team beat the Liectenstein by 27-25.

The two short reports are from local Milton Keynes papers. The Milton Keynes Gazette has a photo of Tony Tropp, GB's top scorer with 11 goals, being held back by an opponent. The Milton Keynes Express photo is less clear but certainly shows Larry Beard (No.2; 1 goal), Philip Church (fart right; 3 goals) and Billy Hayburn (partially hidden by Larry Beard; 9 goals). Willi Hummel No.5 for Liectenstein and in the background of the Gazette photo scored 16 of the Liectenstein total of 25.